<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>do some good by aglassfullofhappiness (mehmehs)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30014283">do some good</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mehmehs/pseuds/aglassfullofhappiness'>aglassfullofhappiness (mehmehs)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Children, Death, Difficult Decisions, Doctor!Nicky, Fluff, M/M, Memories, War, but mostly angst and a big moral question I was curious about for Nicky, medic!nicky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:41:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,337</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30014283</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mehmehs/pseuds/aglassfullofhappiness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>For his part, Nicolò takes to medicine like a duck to water, and Yusuf knows it makes the most sense to him, to be helping others so directly.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> <i>It is a role that takes the most directly from him, too.</i></p><hr/><p>A short series of memories. Situations faced; choices made. Just trying to do some good.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>145</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>do some good</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Please see the end notes for more specific tags. These snippets came out of me thinking about scenarios Joe and Nicky may have faced repeatedly over the centuries, and the breadth and subjectivity of what ‘doing some good’ can mean. I had Many Feelings around what Nicky in particular may have faced as a healthcare worker, and the following happened.</p><p>Big thanks to <a href="https://highbeeans.tumblr.com/">beans</a> and <a href="https://antukini.tumblr.com/">antukini</a> for the last minute beta and support! They're both amazing artists - please go check them out!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At some point, it becomes a familiar pattern: Nicolò as a nurse or a doctor or a medic; Yusuf as a guard or a soldier or an officer. Yusuf isn’t particularly enamoured with his role, but he’s good at it. It’s an effective way to be involved – to fight for a side while keeping an eye on how victory is achieved. For his part, Nicolò takes to medicine like a duck to water, and Yusuf knows it makes the most sense to him, to be helping others so directly.</p><p>It is a role that takes the most directly from him, too. It drags them into situations that lay Nicolò’s heart out bare and tears strips from it. But Yusuf dares anyone to stop Nicolò from helping when he thinks he can. He himself has tried a few times, when hope had seemed cruelly laughable, and whatever shred of good they were achieving was outweighed by what their efforts were doing to Nicolò. Sometimes Yusuf has been successful – but never for very long. He would be irritated by this if he was capable of being irritated by Nicolò’s heart and the unwavering nature of his faith. It burns brightly enough for Joe to never lose his own, and where Nicolò goes, so does he. That part is easy. That part is a choice he never has to think much about. The rest of it – the rest of it is another matter.</p><p>~*~</p><p>Sometimes, it goes like this:</p><p>“Nico,” Yusuf says, and his voice is hoarse, still healing from burns and smoke damage. “Nicolò, please. We have to go. We have to go now.”</p><p>Nicolò is still on his knees in the rubble. Yusuf knows what he will find when he walks over: Nicolò hunched over, a tiny body cradled in his arms; too small to look real but too real all the same. Yusuf crouches down next to him. They are still close enough to the fire to be scorched by its terrible heat; smoke clogging their throats and obscuring their vision. Yusuf knows they might die again if they stay here or if they run back in, and very soon they will be discovered. They have to go. They have to.</p><p>“Nicolò,” he says, and reaches out. Neither Nicolò nor the figure in his arms respond, and Yusuf moves in closer, eyes stinging. The fire casts grotesque shadows in the darkness, and Yusuf isn’t quite sure what he’s seeing. He tries not to look any harder as he moves to take the body; tries not to breathe in the terrible smell he now recognises as burnt flesh. He doesn’t know if he will ever get used to this, for however long their unnatural lives last for. His fingers brush against Nicolò’s arm and Nicolò makes a sudden noise, drawing his arms up to cradle the figure closer to his chest. He’s supporting its head with one hand, bloody fingers running gently over dark hair.</p><p>“No,” he says, just loud enough to be heard. “Just give her – give her a few minutes. She’ll be back.” He lowers his head over the child, lips almost against her forehead. “She’ll come back.”</p><p>Yusuf has had his chest cut open; had his heart sliced apart. So when he says this feels similar – he knows what he is saying. “Nicolò,” he says again, and Nicolò’s next breath is a sob, arms starting to shake. He is trembling so much the figure in his arm is jostled by it, and for a moment Yusuf could imagine…</p><p>But it’s not true. They are the only ones who crawl out of the rubble; the only ones to stumble into the dark, never to be seen again. All their work over the last few months, gone and forgotten, lost with those who would never leave the destruction. All except one – the young girl Nicolò carries because he refuses to let go, because he won’t move on without her. He carries her for several kilometres, even as his energy dwindles and his feet drag, even when Yusuf offers to carry her for him.</p><p>“No,” he repeats, slurring back into their own language as he grows more tired and more delirious. “She’ll come back, Yusuf. She’ll come back.”</p><p>When it is clear – long after it’s clear – that she will not come back, they bury her. They dig a too-small grave for a too-small body, and Nicolò forces out the right words and says the right prayers, and when his voice breaks on <em>please give us the strength to leave her in your care</em>, Yusuf grips his hand until he finishes, and slows his fall when Nicolò sinks to his knees in the dirt. He keeps speaking even as he cries, questions Yusuf can’t answer and curses that no one else hears.</p><p>“If I could die,” Nicolò says, hands fisting in the grass, “if I could die a death for every one of them, if I could die so they could live, I would I would <em>I would</em>, Yusuf, why, <em>why</em> –”</p><p>And sometimes that’s how it goes.</p><p>~*~</p><p>When Nile asks Nicky about their stints as a medic and soldier or some variation thereof, this is what Nicky tells her of first:</p><p>“Doctor?”</p><p>Amal pokes her head into the tent Nicky is in, voice hushed. Their most recent patient is asleep now, finally and thankfully, drifting off while Nicky spoke to them, voice hoarse but unwilling to stop until they’d relaxed. He smiles at her, standing up slowly, and steps out into the late afternoon sun.</p><p>“Your shift’s long over,” she says as they head through the camp. “Someone’s been waiting for you forever.” She laughs when Nicky’s head comes up, and winds an arm through his to direct him to the left. “I wish <em>I</em> had someone to meet me after my shift. We’d better get you to him before he’s nabbed though – he’s getting rather popular.”</p><p>Nicky sees what she means when they reach the play-tent. That’s not its official use, but they’d managed to clear a tiny section for the children who are well enough, and could be entertained under the watchful eye of the nurses. There are an unusually high number of nurses there currently; Nicky supposes their excuse is that there are an unusual number of kids present. Most of them are currently piled on top of the man in their midst, flat on the ground in surrender.</p><p>“Nicky!” Joe says, spotting him at the door. “Ah, you’re doomed, children – the good doctor’s here to save me!”</p><p>“Never!” Adam says, performing an odd manoeuvre that seems to just be lying across Joe’s face. It would be effective if he weren’t tiny, and Joe dislodges him and sits up with a groan, displacing several toddlers in the process. All of them complain, and he scoops them in for a conciliatory cuddle, one in each arm and Lila clinging onto his shirt. Joe grins up at Nicky, and Nicky has no idea what his face is doing except that it’s making the nurses titter.</p><p>“Hi,” Joe says, with a voice that says <em>hi love, I’ve missed you all day like the sea misses the shore and the sun misses the moon, </em>because they barely get to see each other these days, stationed so differently and with so much going on. Joe is in his army slacks, which look clean and crisp, unspoiled yet by what they both know will come. It also makes him look very handsome. Nicky has always loved Joe in uniform.</p><p>“Alright, kids,” Amal says when Nicky can only smile in response. “Let’s let the nice man go so he can catch up with Doctor Nicholas, okay? You’ve had plenty of time with him already.”</p><p>“Nooooo!” Come the chorus of cries, each child clinging onto whatever part of Joe they can get their chubby little fists on. “Why does <em>Doctor Nicholas</em> get him? There’s more of us!”</p><p>“Come now, let’s not be greedy,” Amal says, trying to pick Lila up first so Joe can at least get his legs under him. The girl wraps her arms around Joe’s torso like a koala and buries her face against his chest. <em>She’s like you</em>, Joe had said once, when he’d first brought her in. <em>How so?</em> Nicky had asked, and Joe had smiled and said <em>quiet, but stubborn</em>. <em>A real fighter. </em>The nurses round up the other kids and Nicky helps Joe up, Lila still wrapped tight around him. Nicky puts an arm under her to support her weight, his other hand on Joe’s back, and for a moment they’re in a perfect little embrace, just the three of them.</p><p>It’s a nice memory. It’s a nice one to tell Nile about.</p><p>~*~</p><p>What they don’t talk about until much, much later is this:</p><p>Nicky is running before anyone else can stand, before the buildings stop shaking and the screaming starts for real. Joe is three steps behind him; before they can go far, a hand claws out of the rubble and catches at his ankle – no words, only a cry. Joe stops and Nicky turns for a split second, catching his eye. They don’t even have to nod – Joe turns towards the buried figure and Nicky keeps going. Joe knows where he will be.</p><p>--</p><p>They had hit the hospital, just left of centre. It is unrecognisable, reduced to broken blocks and glass shards stained with red. It had been a big building; the main hospital for miles, overrun and underfunded, nurses trying to liven the place up with scraps from their own homes, doctors trying to sleep in shifts and never getting enough. Nicky spots colour amongst the destruction: a shredded blanket with yellow sunflowers on it; the hardcover of a picture book torn from the story it held; the top half of an old teddy bear. He sees more than that. He sees bodies, limbs, shapes that could have been human. He sees a hand, half the size of his own, waving, and goes to uncover it, only to find it only extended to the forearm and wasn’t waving at all. His vision is blurring with shock and horror and whatever gas had dropped with the bombs. He carries on, dogged and single-minded, straining as his eardrums heal, blinking as his eyeballs burn and heal and burn and heal. There must someone – anyone – there had to be…</p><p>Finally, he hears something: crying, if you could call it that; the primal sound of someone without thought. It is a child’s cry, and Nicky almost goes to his knees with the pain of it, ingraining into his memory like shrapnel under his skull. But he locates it through the ash and smoke, terrified of stepping on them in the chaos, of dislodging any rubble that could hurt them further.</p><p>He recognises the sundress before anything else: a warm shade of red that had reminded Lucy of her mother, she had said. Her arm had been in a cast when they’d finally gotten a word out of her, bandages still wrapped around her forehead, but she’d gestured to her mouth and then pointed at her dress.</p><p>“Lipstick?” Joe had said from where he’d crouched down to say hello. “Like your mother’s beautiful lipstick, right?”</p><p>She had nodded, half hidden behind Nicky’s legs, and Joe’s expression was so soft Nicky could hardly bear it.</p><p>“Well, I think you look wonderful,” Joe had told her, and she’d whispered <em>thank you</em> before burying her face against Nicky’s leg, overcome by shyness.</p><p>“You’re terrorising my patients, soldier,” Nicky had said, and Joe had laughed and waved as they’d walked away for her check-up. Lucy had waved back with her free hand and smiled for the rest of the afternoon.</p><p>She is not smiling now. Nicky can barely make out her face under the ash and blood. The only clear things are the whites of her eyes and the remaining teeth in her mouth, open as she cries. She is flat on her back, and when Nicky stumbles next to her she is saying <em>mama, mama, mama</em> on every broken exhale, tiny hands grasping in the air.</p><p>Her dress is torn and shredded. She is burnt in places beyond recognition; part of her abdomen is torn open. If fate was merciful she would be unconscious, but instead she is awake, delirious but conscious enough to speak. She cries out for her mother even though she knows her mother died last week, and turns her head towards Nicky when she feels him crouch next to her. His hands are shaking as he tries to assess what he can do, and he takes a deep breath and tries to speak to her, calm her down.</p><p>Instead, her fingers grasp at his uniform, and her eyes open wide and she says <em>papa? Papa? Are you –</em></p><p>Nicky grasps her hand and whispers <em>I’m here, I’m here</em>, even though it’s a lie and he checks her again and knows – <em>knows</em> there is nothing he can do, here and now, and by the time help arrives, it will be too late. The terror now is not in death, but in the way she will die, slow and agonising and without reprieve. She is sobbing even though it hurts her more to cry, and she says <em>it hurts it hurts it hurts, please, please, pleasepleaseplease </em>until she is wordless, one ongoing wail that makes Nicky dig his broken nails into his palm, tears in his own eyes. It’s up to him now. There is nothing else to be done.</p><p>--</p><p>Joe is following the path Nicky has taken through the ruined hospital when he hears it: a single, muffled gunshot. He raises his own weapon, alert for an attack, but only finds Nicky a moment later, their paths converging in the rubble.</p><p>“What was that?” he asks, eyes scanning their surroundings before landing back on Nicky. The expression on his face makes Joe stop. “Nicky –”</p><p>“No one here,” Nicky says, and his voice is absolutely still and absolutely steady. “Let’s keep going.”</p><p>~*~</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW for: somewhat graphic depictions of injuries, dead/dying children and mercy killing.</p><p>All feedback welcome. Thank you for reading.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>